Genetic engineering and AI are powering the search for antivenins

According to one of Elon Musks gamer buddies, the controversy surrounding Musks use of boosted characters in Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2 is a big misunderstanding. In a DM exchange on X, Musk told streamer NikoWrex that he did, indeed, pay people to play video games for him. According to Musk, everyone at the highest level is doing it so its fine. At the same time he was preparing to sit at the right hand of President Donald Trump, the worlds richest man was beefing with people online about video games. At the beginning of the year, Musk did a livestream of his Path of Exile 2 character on X. It was weird. According to high-level players with a lot of knowledge of the game, Musk didnt seem to know what he was doing. And his account had tell-tale signs of a guy whod paid to have someone else level it. The gamers called him out and Musk began to publicly fight the allegations. At one point Grimes, the mother of three of his children, even took to X to defend Musks gaming honor. https://x.com/Grimezsz/status/1880685503009443921 Two days ago, NikoWrex posted a YouTube video that he said cleared the whole thing up. Musk wont respond to questions from The Wall Street Journal about his gaming habits but he will, apparently, answer a DM from a gaming buddy on X. With Musks permission, NikoWrex posted the transcript of a conversation hed had with the billionaire on X where he asked him about the controversy outright. Have you level boosted (had someone had someone else play your accounts) and/or purchased gear/ resources for PoE 2 and Diablo 4? NikoWrex asked.Musk responded with a 100 percent emoji. But when I post a video of a game or am streaming, thats 100% me, Musk clarified. Its impossible to beat the players in Asia if you dont, as they do! Musk styles himself as a master gamer, its a big part of his personality and personal brand. The use of boosted characters in games like Diablo and PoE 2 isnt unheard of, but it is controversial. Getting a character to max level can be a grueling task that takes hundreds of hours and gamers have long questioned how it was that Musk was able to get characters up that high while hanging out with Trump and helming multiple companies. NikoWrex asked if Musk intended to take credit for leveling a character to max. No, Musk said. Never claimed that. The top accounts in Diablo or PoE require multiple people playing the account to win the leveling race. Musk is admitting the central claim of the gaming communitys critiques against him: He isnt leveling the accounts himself. Its weird. He could have, if he wanted to, diffused a lot of the drama by just stating this clearly upfront. Instead, he chose to beef with prominent gaming streamers like Asmongold when they called him out.NikoWrex asked about the fight with Asmongold. Musk unfollowed the streamer on X, pulled his blue check, and leaked his DMs without his permission. He seemed to imply that Asmongold wasnt his own person because he worked with editors. Asmongold seemed to require permission from others to stream on X, suggesting he doesnt control his own destiny Musk told NikoWrex. Musk then touted several of his achievements in Diablo 4, even namechecking one that Grimes said she witnessed firsthand.At the end of the conversation, Musk said he would consider allowing Asmongold to stream a SpaceX launch. But he has to admit that I am a living god of video games. . A few days after this conversation, the self-professed living god of video games would appear to Sieg Heil during Trumps inauguration celebration. Twice. While biting his lip.

When people read manga, they often focus on the Instagram caption-worthy one-liners and larger-than-life illustrations that fill their pages. What usually goes unnoticed in picking up a manga is the work that goes into its lettering and graphic design, done by the folks who pour their craftsmanship into typesetting popular Japanese manga for Western audiences. We spoke with professional letterers Brandon Bovia (The Guy She Was Interested in Wasnt a Guy at All, Dragon Ball Super, Kaiju No. 8), Evan Hayden (Battle Angel Alita, Land of Lustrous, Akira), Sara Linsley (Kamudo), Aidan Clarke (Otaku Elf, Neo Faust, Les Miserable), Barri Shrager (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?), Kyla Aiko (Dandadan, Gokurakugai), and Finn K. (Shinobi Undercover, RuriDragon) about the challenges of typesetting the best manga in the world. Manga Lettering in a Nutshell The job of a manga letterer is a collaborative process between publishers and translators where typesetters bring together all the minutiae of text folks would read in a mangaeven if it means designing fonts themselves. If you look at a page of manga, virtually all the text you can read in English was placed there by a letterer. Letterers are localizing everything from restaurant signs to handwritten love letters. If the reader is meant to read it, then the letterer has to localize it. The kinds of things we have to localize vary from genre to genre, Linsley said. Lettering is an art, and sloppy lettering can ruin a localization. Sara Linsley Sara Linsleys lettering for Pupposites Attract by Hono Natsuna Kodansha Using programs like InDesign, PhotoShop, and Acrobat, letterers localize the typography of a manga for Western readers. Depending on the publisher, a letterers graphic design and typography job description may also include working on the manga covers, table of contents, and other pieces of iconography beyond setting dialogue in speech bubbles and translating onomatopoeia sound effects. Furthermore, letters are also tasked with stylizing the font in the manga. Although this process sounds like it could be straightforwardswapping out Japanese with Englishthe lettering process is actually a complex amalgamation of art and science.Theres a misconception that fan translation is the same as professional translation, and those experiences are used to make assumptions about the manga industry. For example, some folks believe that the same person will translate and letter a page, when thats very rare in the professional sphere. Some folks assume that lettering is easy, or that its just copying and pasting text from the translated script. Lettering is an art, and sloppy lettering can ruin a localization, Linsley said. Another element of manga lettering that differentiates itself from lettering in Western comic books is that workers must adapt every word in manga art to English. In laymans terms, manga letterers must erase handwritten Japanese text elements and replace them with English text elements. This extends beyond dialogue in speech bubbles to translating signsbe they on the road, or in apps and text on smartphones (which can be super tricky)and flamboyant sound effects.Brandon Bovias lettering for The Hunters Guild: Red Hood by Yuki Kawaguchi. Shonen Jump Even if the original manga page was created digitally and the sound effects are on a separate layer from the character and background art, those layered files are seldom available to companies that want to localize the manga. The act of erasing and redrawing manga art is often referred to as retouching, and manga letterers are sometimes credited as having done lettering and touch-up art,' Aiko said. As the letterer of Yen Press popular girls love manga, The Guy She Was Interested in Wasnt a Guy at All, Bovia can attest to the challenging aspect of retouching a manga whose identity is tied to the green layer associated with the identity of its busy panels. If something needed to be retouched, it needed to be retouched twiceboth in black and white and green. Then add the green back into the new English text, Bovia said. The final result ended up being a lot of fun, but that one really pushed me to my limit. And I was juggling eight other books at the same time.Brandon Bovias lettering for The Guy She Was Interested in Wasnt a Guy at All by Sumika Arai Yen Press On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hayden goes the extra mile by hand-drawing his work using a bounty of ink pens on paper, especially if hes working on an older manga. If Im working on a classic manga, I really want to make things look as not digital as possible. I try to avoid using fonts for my sound effects. On Ashita no Joe, Im doing all the sound effects by hand and ink, which takes a long time, but thats how the original artist did it, Hayden said. A modern manga looks fine with modern fonts, but an older one doesnt. Thats personal preference.Ink-drawn manga lettering for Ashita no Joe. Evan Hayden While publishers have streamlined some of the day-to-day lettering processes by using Wild Words as their default font, there are areas of specificity between publishers. For example, manga publisher Seven Seas requires letterers to use 100% auto leading, whereas Yen Press instructs them to use font size plus one for leading. That results in very different-looking implementations of the same font between those publishers, Clarke said. Adding font standards in the mix with other overarching graphic design faux pas and no-noslike the ongoing debate over the implementation of the dreaded cross Is use-case in manga, wrapping of text, over-hyphenated words, and other niggling graphic design annoyancescan go unnoticed by the everyday reader but stick out like a sore thumb to a letterer.Some folks assume that lettering is easy, or that its just copying and pasting text from the translated script. Lettering is an art, and sloppy lettering can ruin a localization, Shrager said. Barri Shragers lettering for Meda-Ude: Mechanical Arms by Yoshino Koyoka. Azuki Manga Getting work consistently hasnt been an issue. Getting paid in a timely manner has been. Finn K. Pay, Work, and Life Balance While being a manga letterer might sound like a fun gig anyone would be lucky to have, much like with any job, balancing work, pay, and safeguarding ones personal life can be a tumultuous balancing act. For starters, a weekly 19 or 20-page series can pay a letterer $4-20 per page depending on the publisher and scope of the work. A monthly volume can take 30-50 hours on the light end, and 70-100 hours on the heavier end to complete within a months deadline. Depending on how demanding the project is, monthly pay can wildly vary, with rates at $1,000 (or lower) to $2,000 (again, depending on the project). Mind you, some of these rates havent changed much since 2013 for letterers. I feel like if I had a few more series that paid well enough, I would make this a full-time job with a very small yearly salary (were talking $40-60,000 max). But currently I do other side hustles to earn [more] money. Workload-wise you can easily spend more than a typical 40 hours a week and not be making nearly the same as someone working an office job, Shrager said. I would even say that $1000 these daysthings are expensivedoesnt take you as far as it used to when I started [in 2017], Bovia said.Barri Shragers lettering for My Dear Detective Mitsukos Case Files by Natsumi Ito. Azuki Manga Requesting time extensions from a publisher isnt like pulling teeth because most production schedules have a built-in cushion for emergencies. However, even this security blanket has an element of a double-edged sword. As a freelancer, you dont want to ask for extensions too often. If youre consistently behind on your work, clients can and will drop you from their projects, Linsley said.In addition to managing their time on a manga project, letterers must consider the amount of work they are taking on from publishers and meet deadlines, as no letterer works on only one manga at a time. If you really want to do your best for something, then you got to put in some incredibly long hours. Whether that means youre lettering a manga or whether it means youre making the next Grand Theft Auto game. People have to work crushing hours to make that happen, Hayden said. And if youre a freelancer, youre getting whatever youre getting, whether you do it quick or slow. You have to force yourself to try to work fast, which sometimes can lead to lower quality, which doesnt make you feel very good.Sara Linsleys lettering for Kamudo by Akira Himekawa. Viz Manga Despite putting in what is akin to full-time hours, most letterers are contract workers laboring on multiple manga chapters and books simultaneously to make ends meet. At the same time, some letterers jerry-rig their workflow so that theyre ostensibly working a full-time job lettering. Rather than feeling like the industry, which has had its systems in place for 20 to 30 years, is making strides to be equitable for letterers, most feel like theyre taking strides in the opposite direction. While it might seem like big-money manga titles would be able to provide full-time pay for letterers, the only company that hires full-time in the United States is porn. Fakku, the largest English hentai manga and doujinshi publisher, is one of the only places that hires letterers full-time. The manga industry is notorious for contractor-only work; its pretty cutthroat. Right from when we started publishing manga 10 years ago, I had a goal to improve the industry and make this a real career for people, Fakku founder Jacob Grady told io9. He continued: All of our typesetters are full-time salaried employees, with health insurance/vision/dental all 100% paid by the company with a 401k retirement plan. The goal is really to make this a long-term career for people, and provide job stability for our employees. While there will certainly never be any shortage of readers wanting to read manga for the plot, most manga letterers are contract workers or freelancers who try to make ends meet by supplementing their income with a second job. Its a really hard thing to make ends meet with. I know a number of people who have that as their full-time job, and there are only a select few of them that I dont see getting actively crushed by it, Clarke said. Ive been able to make it work, but if just a few things were to change in my life, it would be more difficult. Kyla Aiko Freelance letterers can face instances where invoices arent paid out promptly or piecemeal, making the work process all the more challenging. Manga lettering is my main source of income, and while what Im paid works for me most the time, its not my only source. I have a part-time job that Ive held the entire length of my lettering career. Part of the reason is because, while getting work consistently hasnt been an issue, getting paid in a timely manner has been and thats a little stressful even if the moneys good for me, Finn K. said.He continued: On average, it takes three weeks for an invoice to come through for me; sometimes I wait a month. The longest Ive had to wait was a little over two months, and that was hard. While the pay at bigger publishers is more rewarding for most letterers, getting paid in unpredictable timeframes makes the cycle of finding more work and paying bills a stressful ordeal, to say the least. Despite this, letterers balance their workload by typesetting manga monthly or weekly. Sara Linsleys lettering for Dandadan by Yukinobu Tatsu. Shonen Jump If a publisher wants to know how to produce manga faster and cheaper, ask your employees, not an AI startup. Sara Linsley AI Is Not a Solution As the use of AI spreads in nearly every arena of entertainment, tech startups like Orange, Inc. have become pervasive in the manga industry. While companies of this ilk promote their services as a solution to get more under-appreciated manga localized to people in a timely fashion, letterers feel they are no more than a grift. In opposition to publishers eyeing up AI start-ups as a means to maximize production, letterers feel publishers should open up lines of communication with their employees (i.e., letterers) and ask them for solutions the industry is facing. People are interested in comics because they are a form of art. Theyre not just content. They are something that people have put a lot of thought, care, and effort into creating, Clarke said. Not trying to match that passion and effort in the presentation is disrespectful to the people who created these comics in the first place. Automation is a very useful tool that individuals can use within their workflows, but consigning so much of that creative process over to automated methods robs it of that spark.Despite the encroachment of AI, the manga industry faces other persistent issues. As mentioned earlier, low rates are a big one, making the role of a letterer both mentally and physically taxing for workers. Rates are fairly stagnant. Ive seen companies make efforts to raise rates, but its been a slow process. As new companies enter the manga localization market, sometimes it seems like rates are at a race to the bottom, Aiko said. It would be great to see manga lettering rates catch up to even the low end of Western comic lettering rates. Linsley added, The pay is so low that letterers have to overload themselves. I had to stop lettering as my main source of income because I was working 70-hour weeks just to make an average income with no benefits. In tandem with low rates, letters feel like the industrys structure, which relies on contract work from typesetters, prevents years of knowledge to get passed on to letterers in a mentorship capacity outside of folks hitting colleagues up on social media.Over my years of lettering manga, I think, because there isnt any sort of mentorship, you have a new letterer starting from scratch. That doesnt have to be the case. There can be systems in place to ensure people can do this long term as a career, Bovia said. Barri Shragers lettering for Hikaru in the Light! by Mai Matsuda. Azuki Manga Publishers Should Invest in Workers Rather than waiting for solutions to manifest, letterers propose ways the industry can improve and prevent the above challenges from persisting, starting with investing in workers. Letterers we spoke to proposed publishers consult with them for solutions, more open calls for letterers, keeping lines of communication open between contractors and in-house employees, allowing freelancers to negotiate wages, and raising wages to match the modern cost of living. There are publishers out there thatll [hire you] for $600, $500, $400, which is really not much money for your time. If youre just starting out, its really tempting to take those low rates if youre not being offered anything else, Bovia said. Because theres no career path here, its just down to luck and being in the right place at the right time. That doesnt feel like the best way to run things to me. While much of the above can deter any bright-eyed hopeful looking to dip their toes into the profession, every letterer we spoke to encouraged folks to make time for their hobbies and not sacrifice their precious time (and weekends) for endless work.Youve got to do what youve got to do to pay the bills, but you also have to respect yourself as a human being, an artist, and a citizen to get enough money to live a life, Hayden said. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Case Vecie Winery Production Facility / MASAAI StudioSave this picture! Francesca IoveneHousesGrezzana, ItalyArchitects: MASAAI StudioAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:402 mYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2024 PhotographsPhotographs:Francesca IoveneMore SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. As part of the recovery programme for the entire 'Case Vecie' property in the hills of Grezzana, its winery needed a new production facility, a changing room for employees and a tool shed for the agricultural management of the estate. The building is located at the bottom of a clearing, in a hidden valley far from the ridge line, and has deliberately been partially positioned underground for minimal impact on the landscape.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The project's underlying concept is to take up the design of the old barchesse in a contemporary key and pay great attention to the choice of materials in order to blend in with the surrounding context. The building is L-shaped, with an internal side that opens up onto the gravel courtyard, permeable to the entrance of agricultural machinery, and an external side with a leaner and more closed character, buffered at the bottom by plastered masonry and at the top by natural larch planking.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The elevations are all characterised by a regular score of massive circular pillars, designed in concrete which is coloured with natural oxides, connecting with the colours of the terrain and context, which support the wooden truss structure of the 2-pitch roof, covered with tiles.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessAbout this officeMASAAI StudioOfficePublished on January 21, 2025Cite: "Case Vecie Winery Production Facility / MASAAI Studio" 21 Jan 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1025860/case-vecie-winery-production-facility-masaai-studio&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

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Runners completing a half marathon in Beijing later this year will do so with some unusual, metal competition at their sides. According to a press release from Chinas Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, more than 12,000 human runners will square off against dozens of bipedal, humanoid robots from more than 20 companies in a 13-mile course. The top three finishers, be they human or humanoid, will receive prizes. But the robots will have their work cut out for them. As of now, no bipedal robot has successfully completed that long of a race, let alone against a seasoned human runner. The announcement was first spotted by the South China Morning Post.There are some requirements the robot joggers will have to meet. For starters, they will need to look vaguely human. That means two legs and a mechanical structure capable of carrying out bipedal functions like upright walking and running. These guidelines rule-out high-functioning quadruped robots like Boston Dynamics Spot or KAISTs RAIBO2, which completed a full marathon last year in just over four hours.Wheels also arent allowed. In terms of size, E-Town says the humanoid should measure between 1.6-6.5 feet tall with a maximum extension from their hip joint to the foot sole of at least .45 meters. Importantly, the robots wont need to be fully autonomous to compete. Teams are allowed to remotely operate their machines, which could come as welcome news if Tesla decides to send its Optimus bot to the race. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.Robots are already running, some faster than othersHumanoid robots have already proven capable of running, sometimes quite quickly. Last year, a team of engineers from Oregon State University created a bipedal, though not human-looking robot that set a Guinness World Record for the fastest 100-meter dash performed by a machine. In China, humanoid robots from the companies Robot Era and Unitree Robotics can reportedly reach top running speeds of eight miles per hour and 7.38 miles per hour respectively. Tiangong, a humanoid robot created by Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center actually made an appearance at the finish line of a half marathon last year, but it didnt complete the entire course. Still, none of these robots come close to matching human sprinter Usain Bolts record top speed of 27.33 miles per hour.Outside of events like these, humanoid robots are mostly being designed with two primary use cases in mind: manufacturing and caretaking. Chinese humanoid robots have already reportedly been deployed at BYD car factories, though its unclear exactly how much work they are actually complete. China isnt alone on that front. Last year, BMW announced it was recruiting a humanoid robot from Figure AI to work in its South Carolina manufacturing facility. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, meanwhile, has also suggested the companys Optimus robots could one day work alongside humans to build future electric vehicles. For now, though, Optimus in particular seems best equipped at fondling eggs and performing cranking out light calisthenics.But the April race might not be all for show either. Government-backed challenges and competitions have a history of fostering research innovations down the lines. An example of that played out during DARPAs 2007 Grand Challenge when the agency had some of the top engineering minds at the time face off head-to-head to create an autonomous vehicle capable of driving itself through a desert. Autonomous vehicle experts previously told Popular ScienceIts possible one of the running robots in Beijing could follow a similar tract. Or, they could also fall flat on their faces. Either way, well be watching with interest.

A test rover with shape memory alloy spring tires traverses rocky, Martian-simulated terrain. Credit: NASAShareAny vehicle traversing the rocky terrain on Mars needs a sturdy set of wheels. NASAs Perseverance rover, for example, sports thick aluminum ones covered in cleats to enhance its traction and mobility. But theres always room for improvement, and NASA researchers are reportedly busy designing the next generation of tires for future rover expeditions across the Red Planetand unlike Perseverance, one new design puts the emphasis on flexibility over rigidity.According to NASA on Tuesday, engineers at the Glenn Research Center in Cincinnati, OH, recently finished testing a prototype rover featuring the latest shape memory alloy (SMA) spring tire technology. This novel alloy relies on a specially manufactured nickel-titanium blend capable of returning to its original shape after bending, stretching, or experiencing extreme temperature shifts. While standard tires are often completely solid, these SMA alternatives more resemble a wheel-shaped, tightly interlocking mesh framework.Researchers from NASAs Glenn Research Center and Airbus Defence & Space pose with a test rover on Martian-simulated terrain. Credit: NASA Santo Padula, a NASA materials engineer at the Glenn Research Center, has worked on finetuning SMA technology for years, but only recently realized their potential for Mars rover projects. The idea came after visiting NASAs Simulated Lunar Operations (SLOPE) Laboratory following an unexpected run-in with an old colleague, Colin Creager, who showed him their latest rover tests. Almost immediately, however, Padula noticed a potential flaw in the prototypes steel wheels.The minute I saw the tire, I said, arent you having problems with those plasticizing? asked Padula in reference to steels potential to deform irreversibly.Colin told me, Thats the only problem we cant solve, Padua recounted. I said, I have your solution. Im developing a new alloy that will solve that. And thats how SMA tires started.Both Padula and Creagers teams collaborated for months to adapt SMAs for rover wheels, eventually resulting in a version ready for stress tests. Last fall, the researchers travelled to the Airbus Defence and Space facilities in Stevenage, UK, to try out the SMAs in an enclosed Martian terrain simulation. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.We went out there with the team, we brought our motion tracking system and did different tests uphill and back downhill, said Creager. We conducted a lot of cross slope tests over rocks and sand where the focus was on understanding stability because this was something we had never tested before.According to NASA, while the SMA tire shape shifted in response to the rocky ground, its deformations were minimal and still met all expectations.My goal is to extend the operating temperature capability of SMAs for applications like tires, and to look at applying these materials for habitat protection, Padua said in NASAs rundown.He and Creager believe upcoming rovers fitted with SMA wheels may not just benefit missions to Mars, but to the moon, as well. Theres even a possibility for the alloys to find their way into other projects, such as astronaut habitats and other lunar base structures. In particular, SMA exteriors show potential for withstanding and absorbing micrometeorite strikes that often occur on the Moon.